Pangasius- the new aquaculture industry favourite?

Odd Grydeland  At the AquaNor conference and trade show in Trondheim two years ago, a presentation was given by a Vietnamese professor about the production of pangasius in the Mekong River delta. I remember hearing that the production level was around 400,000 tonnes, which was a surprise, since I had never heard of this fish before. The same seems to be the situation for journalist Max Prudencio of the Phillippine News Agency, according to the company’s recent article in their web-based news service, balita-dot-ph, from which the following exerpts were obtained ; Pangasius? What? Admittedly, most of us have not heard of this foreign sounding name of fish, much less know what it looks like. It may indeed be not as common and popular as bangus and tilapia but, did you know that every time you take a bite out of that yummy fish burger at a popular fast food outlet, the patty most probably is pangasius? This fleshy and fast growing fish, according to Dr. Adelaida Palma, was introduced in the country by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources–National Inland Fisheries Technology Center (BFAR-NIFTC) as early as 1981. Palma, chief of Tanay, Rizal–based BFAR-NIFTC said that breeding trials were started in 1985 and protocol for breeding and grow-out had been developed in succeeding years. Apparently, market was not ready at that time hence, pangasius fingerlings that were produced were passed on to the aquarium fish trade as "freshwater hammerhead shark." As can be gleaned from Internet sources, it was only lately that pangasius gained wide acceptance as food fish. 

The website eurofish.dk lists pangasius production in Vietnam at 40,000 metric tons in 1997. Due to strong demand, production shot up dramatically and at present, pangasius is considered as the top three cultured food fish in the world. Last year, Vietnam, where 90 percent of pangasius farming occur, exported 640,800 tons of pangasius products worth US$ 1.4 billion out of 1.2 million metric tons total production. Pangasius, also known as river catfish, belongs to the family Silurida (Pangasiidae) and is indigenous to the Mekong river delta bordered by Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and China’s Yunan Province. Pangasius takes the name basa, tra or swai fish in the United States. In the country, processed pangasius is marketed as Cream Dory fish.